By Marina Cameron
As a young feminist, I have been dismayed over the last few years to see words such as "chick", "babe" and "girl" creeping back into use in feminist and left circles.
It makes me very uncomfortable to see feminists wearing T-shirts emblazoned with "space chick" (the official T-shirt for organisers of the Network of Women Students Australia conference a few years back), for example.
Roslyn Moloney, in GLW #271, says that these words can be "reclaimed" and used positively to empower women. Does that make me one of those politically correct puritans that conservatives are always talking about? Have I failed to move with the times? I don't think so.
I disagree with Moloney that it just depends on how these words are used; that is, that it is OK for a feminist to call another feminist "chick", but not for a male building site worker to do so. What if a progressive man calls me "girl"? Do I try to explain to him the effects of sexist language, or do I stay silent in the hypocrisy of having called a woman "chick" five minutes earlier?
Language is not something that can be "reclaimed" at will by a handful of individuals to mean just what they want it to mean at any particular moment. Language doesn't stand outside the society within which it exists. "Chick" and "baby", for example, are derogatory words when used for women because their specific definitions are something other than intelligent, mature, full human beings.
Lisa Macdonald pointed out in her article on the subject (GLW #268) that language reflects rather than shapes reality. But the reason the women's movement struggles against sexist language is that language also reinforces reality.
Sexist language arises because we live in a society in which women are seen as inferior, as not deserving the same rights as men and as primarily useful in the roles of mother, wife and sex object. Mainstream language in such a society is inevitably going to be sexist.
Earlier generations of feminists fought hard for the adoption of non-sexist language in educational institutions, workplaces and government. This ideological battle was coupled with the fight for concrete reforms such as making sex discrimination and harassment illegal.
The Liberal government's instruction to public servants late last year to go back to using "chairman" instead of "chairperson" when drafting legislation reflects this government's ideological drive to assert that women are no longer oppressed, thereby paving the way for attacks on child-care and welfare funding, women's access to education and decent wages and conditions in those areas where women workers are concentrated.
Continuing to resist sexist language is important, but the only way to succeed is to build a large, active women's movement that can tackle the social structures underlying women's second class status.
That said, language is not static; it does change. Those feminists who now talk about reclaiming language often refer back to the gay liberation movement in the 1960s and '70s, which began to adopt words of derision like "dyke" and "poof".
Along with a campaign of consciousness-raising, lesbians and gay men were encouraged to use these words with pride. but also to reaffirm that homosexuals are still oppressed. Their use of them was thus a challenge to society and was one aspect of an active campaign for recognition and rights.
Likewise, the black rights movement in the US has (and still does) used the word "nigger" in ways that underscore the idea that it is a derogatory word, a product of widespread racism and bigotry in society. In using it (such as by the Afro-American band Niggers With Attitude), they bring attention to and condemn the persistent racism in the US.
In contrast, those feminists who use the words "chick" and "babe" today are not doing so to highlight the fact that women are still oppressed. Rather, they are using them to declare their supposed liberation — the conquering of traditionally male-dominated areas by "net or cyber chicks", for example.
In fact, the use of these derogatory words for women in a context where women are still oppressed only feeds into the traditional stereotypes and does nothing to challenge women's inequality.
While the focus in the struggle against sexism must be on rebuilding a mass women's movement to fight against all forms of sex discrimination and oppression, rather than simply on changing language, women's liberationists (male and female) do need to be constantly aware, and explaining to others, that the current social context makes these words sexist.
Especially in the context of the backlash against women's rights that is under way and the probability, therefore, that sexist language will become more "normal" again, we need to be very aware of the social and political content of the terms we use. This is particularly important because sexist language obstructs the participation of women in the movement to eliminate the source of women's oppression — the same profits-before-people system that oppresses blacks, migrants and the poor.
Until women do achieve their liberation, if someone calls women "chicks" around me, they'd better be prepared for a polite, but firm, rebuttal.